With Drake on the Spanish Main

by Herbert Strang

He took endless pleasure in studying the amiable creature; and when, his work with the ship being finished, he began once more to take lengthy strolls across the island, he drew a new delight from the companionship of the monkey. The friendship being so firmly established, Mirandola showed off his accomplishments with a freedom he had not displayed when he regarded this newcomer with distrust and suspicion. Dennis laughed to see his antics in the trees. He would curl his long tail about a branch, and swing to and fro with manifest enjoyment. Sometimes, clutching a banana with one hand, he would pick another with one foot, and hold a third to his mouth with the second hand. Sometimes when he saw Dennis holding his forehead in a brown study, he would rub his long gaunt arms over his own brow with a wistful look that brought a smile to the lad's face. He was amiability itself, and showed genuine distress when Dennis took occasion to scold him for some piece of inconvenient prankishness.

Now that his thoughts were no longer engrossed with his salvage work, Dennis more often speculated on his future. The prospect was not very encouraging. Supposing he could carry out his half-formed purpose of building a boat, what chance was there of surviving a voyage across the ocean in a vessel that, untrained as he was in handicraft, must necessarily be a clumsy thing? And unless he could risk an ocean voyage he felt that he had better remain where he was. No European nation but the Spaniards and the Portuguese had settlements on the American coast. What might be expected at the hands of the Spaniards he knew full well. Had he not heard from the lips of one Master John Merridew fearsome tales of their treachery and cruelty? John Merridew had sailed with Captain John Hawkins to the West Indies, with Master Francis Drake as one of the company. Forced by foul weather into the port of St. John de Ulua, the Captain made great account of a certain Spanish gentleman named Augustine de Villa Nueva, and used him like a nobleman. Yet this same Augustine, sitting at dinner one day with the Captain, would certainly have killed him with a poniard which he had secretly in his sleeve, had not one John Chamberlain espied the weapon and prevented the foul deed. And recalling Merridew's narrative, Dennis wondered what had become of those hundred poor wretches who, when victuals ran short, and the ship's company were driven to eat parrots and monkeys and the very rats that swarmed in the hold, preferred to shift for themselves on shore, rather than starve on ship-board. In imagination he saw that touching scene, when the General, as Merridew called Captain Hawkins, gave to each man five yards of cloth, embraced them in turn, counselled them to serve God and love one another; and thus courteously bade them a sorrowful farewell, promising, if God sent him safe to England, to do what he could to bring home such as remained alive. That Captain Hawkins would fulfil his promise Dennis believed; but how many of those Englishmen were still living? He reflected that he at least had food and present safety; compared with theirs his lot was a king's.

But he was not to escape misfortune altogether. One day the storm he had so long been expecting broke over the island, hurling great seas into the mouth of the chine, threatening to dash the Maid Marian against the rocks or sweep her out into the ocean. In the midst of pelting, blinding rain Dennis strove to ensure her safety. She wrenched at her anchor; every moment he feared lest her mooring ropes should be snapped; he could do little but keep a watch on the fastenings. And while he was thus watching, a roaring flood passed through the gully from the plateau above, swamping his hut, washing away some of his hardly-won stores; and the fierce blast tore off the roof of one of his sheds, exposing its contents to all the fury of the weather.

Next day he did what he could to repair the damage. Fortunately much of his perishable goods was contained in stout boxes which he always kept securely fastened, and the things he lost were those he could best spare.

In the afternoon of that day, he went across to the opposite side of the island, as he was wont to do at intervals, to take a look-out from the high cliff there. He wondered whether the storm had cast any other ill-fated vessel upon the shore. But, scanning the whole horizon, he saw nothing but league upon league of restless sea.

"Our solitude is not to be disturbed, Mirandola," he said to the monkey, "for which let us be thankful. Or ought we to deplore it? I wish you could speak, my friend, and tell me something of your history. Are you the last of your race, I wonder? Well, so am I. I have no kith nor kin; nor, as it appears, have you. I have a humble estate in an island—to be sure, somewhat larger than this. Now I come to think of it, this island is yours; it is a mark of nobility of soul—or is it poverty of spirit? I cannot say—that you do not regard me as a supplanter. Good Holles, my steward, would not brook the intrusion of any adventurer on my lands. Heigh ho! How fares the old fellow, I wonder? How he shook his old head when I acquainted him with my purpose to join Sir Martin Blunt in his voyage to the Spanish Main! 'God save you, sir!' said he, and asked whether he should sell my whippets! One thing I know, Mirandola: that if it please God to bring me safe home in season, Holles will give me a faithful account of his stewardship. Let me think I am your steward, good my friend. And now let us return to our honey-pot."

On the way back, Dennis struck somewhat to the left of his usual path, to skirt the marsh on its south-western instead of its north-eastern side. It was far larger in area than when he had first seen it; its outlet was too narrow to carry off the surplusage due to the tremendous rains. Dennis was picking his way around the oozy edge, letting his thoughts travel back to the pleasant land of Devon, when suddenly he was brought up short by the sight of a mark in the soft earth, the strangeness of which mightily surprised and perplexed him. Parallel with his own tracks there ran for a few yards a faint ribbon-like track—such a track as might be made by a large cart wheel that had rested very lightly on the surface. It was a single track: following its course, he found that it disappeared into the water, just as he had seen the mark of a cart wheel disappear into a roadside horse-pond at home.

He looked around. There was nothing to account for the mark. He scouted the idea that it had been actually made by a wheel; a vehicle must have been drawn by animals, and there were no hoof-marks to match. With all his puzzling he could find no explanation, and though he looked warily about him as he went on his way, with some return of his old feeling of nervousness, he saw no sign to suggest that the island had been visited.

It was a day or two before he again found himself near the marsh. He had been fishing from the base of the high cliff that formed his usual look-out. A kind of natural pier of broken rock jutted out from the cliff seawards, and the deep water on each side was the favourite resort at high tide of shoals of small fish, which chose it, he supposed, because the depth was not great enough for the ground sharks that sometimes made their appearance off the shore, and the little fish could disport themselves there in security.

Carrying his catch on a string—enough for his own dinner, for Mirandola would not touch it—he passed again by the brink of the marsh, and once more was puzzled by the wheel-like track which he had seen before and been unable to explain. The marsh had somewhat shrunk in the interval; the receding water had left more of the track visible: and the outer soil having been baked hard by the sun, the strange imprint was clearer and more definite.